Reduce Food Waste Maker Workshop
A study released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 2011 showed that about one-third of the world's food is lost or wasted every year. Since the publication of the data, global attention to this issue has significantly increased. However, to achieve more sustainable consumption patterns and Sustainable Development Goal 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), more people need to pay attention to this issue and propose practical solutions. Since 2016, the China Representative Office of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has established a long-term teaching and research cooperation with the School of Fine Arts at Tsinghua University, conducting courses, workshops, and other forms of cooperation on issues such as poverty alleviation and rural revitalization.
In order to help the contestants quickly improve their plans within two days, the event organizer invited more than ten young experts from different fields to serve as mentors, providing strong intellectual support for the participating teams from different perspectives such as IT technology, blockchain, business, and design.
On the afternoon of November 24th, ten final teams made their final presentation in the A301 auditorium of the Academy of Fine Arts, with five experts from different fields serving as the final judges. The proposal presentation was brilliant and varied, and after nearly an hour of intense discussion among the judges, the three teams stood out.
The first place winning team "Food for Life" suggests developing a mobile application that utilizes technologies such as blockchain, Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence to help agricultural product sellers directly connect with customers, thereby solving the sales problems of perishable and unsold agricultural products, and ultimately reducing food waste in the supply chain.
The idea of the second winning team, "Pinshaoshao," is to design a platform for tourists to register local food and dining dates they want to try while traveling, and then find other tourists willing to group meals on the same day. In this way, when traveling in a city, you can taste more local cuisine with less money and reduce food waste.
The third place winning team "W+" plans to design a smart cafeteria system. By embedding RFID tags into special cafeteria plates, the cafeteria management system can track the nutritional information and food waste of student meals.
The organizers of this maker workshop are the Service Design and Research Institute of the School of Fine Arts at Tsinghua University, the China University Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education Alliance, the Tsinghua University Student Maker Space Association, and the Qingcheng Education Innovation Research Institute. In terms of event planning, publicity and promotion, logistics organization, and resource coordination, they demonstrate Tsinghua University's innovative, efficient, collaborative, and orderly practical ability and spiritual style. This maker workshop is also a major milestone in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Tsinghua University and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
